Thursday, 17 March 2016

Bringing Yourself Back to the Present

Wherever you
are and whatever you’re doing, there are always three different things you can
do with your attention.
Firstly, you can give it to the thought-chatter in your head - the stream of
mental associations (images, memories, future projections,
worries etc.) that runs through our minds when our attention isn’t occupied.
Secondly, you can choose to immerse your attention in tasks or distractions,
such as TV programmes, magazines, the Internet or a hobby. Or thirdly, you can
give your attention on your actual present experience - that is, focus your
attention on your actual surroundings, and the experiences you have in those
surroundings.

For example,
if you’re in waiting room at the doctor’s surgery, you can either daydream
(perhaps think about what you’re going to do at the weekend, or mull over some
problems you have at work), immerse your attention in a magazine or your
I-phone, or observe the other people around you and the objects and décor of
the room itself. Or when you go for a jog, you can either daydream, listen to
an audio book on your I-pod, or give your attention to your surroundings, the
scenery you pass and the nature around you.

In
shorthand, you can think of these three states as ‘the three As’: abstraction
(i.e. immersion in thought-chatter), absorption (i.e. in activities or
distractions) and awareness (i.e. conscious attention to our experience). It
isn’t completely cut and dried, of course – in a state of abstraction or
absorption, you’re usually still in a state of partial awareness too. For
example, even if you’re daydreaming or listening to an audio book while
jogging, you’re obviously still aware of your surroundings to a degree - enough
to pay attention to the traffic, or to keep to your normal route. But usually
this is only a very basic and functional awareness; the largest proportion of
your mental energy is given up to absorption or abstraction.

Every moment
of our lives, we unconsciously evaluate these three options and choose one of
them - and it’s usually one of the first two that we prefer.

Think about
how much time you spend in each of these three states. As a percentage,
estimate what proportion of a typical day you spend in a state of abstraction,
a state of absorption and a state of awareness….

I have asked
many people this question in workshops and on-line courses, and people almost
always estimate that they spend by far the least proportion of their days in a
state of awareness. As a rough average, people say they spend 5-15% of their
time in awareness, 50-60% of their time in absorption, and 25-35% in
abstraction.

This is a
great shame, because living in a state of
awareness is by the far the most beneficial state. Being present equates with a
state of well-being. It enables us to perceive beauty and wonder in the world
around us. And in a sense, being present means being truly alive. Our lives
only consist of the present - the past and the future are only abstractions,
which don’t really exist. There is never anything except our experience in the
present moment. So if we’re not aware of our experience in the present - if
we’re in a state of absorption or abstraction - then in a sense we’re not
really living.

This doesn’t
mean that we should spend all our time in a state of awareness, with our
attention focus on our experience and our surroundings. Both abstraction and
absorption can be enjoyable, useful and necessary sometimes. But we should
certainly try to increase the amount of time we spend in awareness. In terms of
the percentages above, we should try to decrease the amount of time we spend in
abstraction and absorption, and transfer it into awareness.

The
Gentle Mental Nudge

Awareness
often occurs spontaneously - for example, when we’re in beautiful countryside, on holiday in
unfamiliar surroundings, or when we see a beautiful piece of art - but it can
also be consciously cultivated.

This means
making a conscious effort to focus your attention on the here and now. Whenever
you realise that you’re in abstraction or absorption, try to make a habit of
bringing yourself back to the present - not too rigidly or harshly, but with
what I call a ‘gentle mental nudge.’ Whenever you realise that you’ve become
immersed in thought-chatter, gently withdraw your attention from it and
re-focus on your surroundings and your experience. Focus on the room you’re in
and the objects and other people around you, and on the sounds you can hear.
Look at the colour and shape of the objects and their relationship to each
other. Feel the texture of the table you’re sitting at, the pen you’re writing
with or the carpet your feet are on. Make a conscious effort to smell – perhaps the room or the
street is filled with smells you weren’t aware of but which are quite
perceptible. Do the same whenever you feel the impulse to immerse your
attention in distractions or activities.

If you don’t
do this gently, and jolt your attention away from thought-chatter, you’ll
generate resistance, which will make it difficult for you to be present. Rather
than forcing yourself, just gently guide yourself back into the present,
and re-orientate yourself there. It’s like walking in the park with a toddler
who doesn’t understand the concept of a straight line and keeps veering off the
path in different directions: every few steps you have to gently pick him up
and point him in the right direction again.

For example,
when you’re walking to the tube station in the morning with your mind buzzing
with thoughts about what happened last night or what’s ahead of you today –
give yourself a gentle mental nudge and bring your attention away from those
thoughts and into the present. Transfer your attention away from your
thought-chatter towards the sky above you, the trees and buildings and the cars
around you, and the awareness of yourself inside your body, walking in the
midst of these surroundings. When you’re eating your evening meal and realise
that you’re reading a newspaper, give yourself a mental nudge and transfer your
attention to the taste of the food and the chewing and swallowing. Or when
you’re in a meeting at work: take your attention out of the discussion for a
moment and be aware of the room you’re in, take in its shape and its colours
and its furniture. Be aware of yourself sitting there, of your bottom against
the surface of the chair, your back against its back and your feet on the
floor.

We usually
assume that activities like driving or eating or cooking aren’t enough in
themselves, because they’re essentially mundane and dreary. We feel as though
we need to combine them with distractions – like reading the paper while you
eat or having the TV on in the kitchen while you cook – to make them more
bearable. But when we actually do give ourselves wholly to the activities
we find the opposite: these activities are sufficient in themselves; in fact,
they provide a sense of ease and harmony which no distraction or daydream ever
could.

In awareness
the whole world becomes much more fascinating and beautiful. We realise that
objects and scenes are only beautiful or fascinating in proportion to how much
attention we give to them. Beauty isn’t just something innate, a quality which
some objects possess – much more than that, it’s something that we create. The
more attention we invest, the more beauty and fascination we perceive. Everyday
objects and scenes only seem mundane because we don’t give them real attention.
When we do consciously attend to them, we realise that they’re just as
attractive as ancient artefacts that we go to museums to look at, or unfamiliar
foreign scenes that we travel across the world to see.

Once you get
into the habit of bringing yourself back to the present you’ll be surprised how
easy it is to do. It quickly begins to feel natural, and makes our normal state
of abstraction seem absurd. Why should I let these crazy whirls of memory and
association take up my attention when there is this endlessly rich and
intricate world in front of me, filled with layer after layer of is-ness and
wonder? you might ask yourself. Being immersed in thought-chatter instead of
living in awareness is like travelling to a beautiful city – like Paris or
Venice – and spending all your time there in your hotel room watching
television.

Breakdowns and ‘Shift-Ups’

The relationship between psychosis and spiritual awakening

Over the
last ten years, I’ve spent a lot of time investigating the phenomenon of
spiritual awakening.
In my PhD thesis, for example, I investigated the cases of 25 people who
believed that they had undergone spiritual awakening. I examined the apparent
causes or triggers of their transformation, the characteristics of their new
state, and what kinds of changes it had generated in their attitudes and
lifestyles. Since then, I’ve investigated many other cases, including a group
of around 32 people who had powerful transformational experiences following
periods of intense psychological turmoil, the majority of which could be
classed as a permanent, ongoing ’awakening.’

The term
‘spiritual awakening’ is quite slippery, so let me clarify what I mean by it. I
see it as a psychological shift - or transformation of being - which
doesn’t necessarily have to be interpreted in religious or even spiritual
terms. I actually prefer to term it simply ‘awakening’ (as a process) and
‘wakefulness’ (as a state), to emphasise that it can occur outside spiritual
traditions. In fact, I have found that it occurs most frequently amongst people
who have little or no knowledge of spiritual practices or traditions.

In the light
of these factors, I define spiritual awakening as a shift into a different,
higher-functioning state in which a person’s vision of the world and
relationship to it are transformed, along with their subjective experience and
sense of identity. This shift brings a
sense of well-being, clarity and connection. The person develops a more intense
awareness of the phenomenal world, and a broad, global outlook, with an
all-embracing sense of empathy with the whole human race, and a much reduced sense of
for group identity.

There are
three main different types of ‘wakefulness.’ There is ‘natural wakefulness’ ,
when the state is simply innate to people, without them making any effort
to cultivate it. (The poet Walt Whitman is a good example of this.) There is
‘gradual wakefulness’, which is usually cultivated by certain techniques (such
as meditation) and lifestyles
(such as following the eight-limbed path of yoga, or a monastic lifestyle).
Finally, there is ‘sudden wakefulness’, which involves an instantaneous and
dramatic identity shift, and occurs most frequently in response to intense
psychological turmoil, such as bereavement, loss, failure or
severe stress.

In my
research, I have found that sudden awakening in response to turmoil (or
‘transformation through turmoil’ as I sometimes call it) is far from uncommon.
Unfortunately, however, it is often undetected or misinterpreted. This is
because sometimes sudden awakening occurs in an intensely energetic and
explosive form, and causes some psychological disturbances. The shift sometimes
creates a psychological earthquake which temporarily disrupts functions such as
concentration, cognition and memory. A person may find it
difficult to think clearly or focus their attention, because their minds are
overwhelmed with new impressions and thoughts and visions. They may have
difficulty organizing their lives, making plans and decisions, or solving
problems. In extreme cases, they may even temporarily have problems speaking,
and find any social interaction difficult.

As a result,
‘sudden energetic awakening’ (as I call it) is frequently misdiagnosed as a
form of psychosis. For example, in my PhD research, there were 5 clear cases of
‘sudden energetic awakening’, four of whom were seen by psychiatrists, given medication and/or confined to psychiatric hospitals.

This
misinterpretation is a great shame, for two reasons. On the one
hand, it means that the awakening process is pathologised. It is ‘officially’
confirmed that the awakening person has ‘something wrong’ with them, or is
‘going mad.' Any doubt and incomprehension they may have had from their friends
is substantiated by the medical profession. This means that they are more
likely to try to deny or suppress their awakening, and that they are less
likely to receive support and understanding. The second
problem is that, if an awakening person is given medication, this may interfere
with the organic process of re-stabilisation and integration that should follow
awakening. Ironically, although medication may suppress some of the psychological
disturbances that sometimes arise with sudden awakening, in the long term it
may actually perpetuate them - that is, stop them fading away naturally.

However,
although this is very unfortunate, it’s perhaps not so surprising, since sudden
energetic awakening can certainly resemble psychosis. Unless a psychiatrist is
aware of spiritual awakening as a process - which is unfortunately still quite
rare - then it’s all too easy for them to mis-read its symptoms.

Differentiating Psychosis and Awakening

Some
researchers believe that there is no fundamental difference between psychosis
and spiritual awakening,
but simply a fundamental experience of going beyond the boundaries of the
normal self, which can become either a psychotic or a spiritual experience
depending on different factors. For example, one of the UK’s leading
researchers on 'spiritual crisis,' Isabel Clark, believes that the most
important factor in determining whether a transpersonal experience becomes ‘a
life-enhancing spiritual event’ or a ‘damaging psychotic breakdown from which
there is no easy escape’ is how strong and stable a person’s sense of self is -
or in her terms, the ‘well-foundedness’ of the self, or ‘ego-strength.’

In other
words, if a person doesn’t have a strong sense of self, they are more likely to
have a psychotic experience. Clark believes that, rather than making a
distinction between spirituality and psychosis,
we should think of a whole spectrum of ‘transliminal states of consciousness.’
Another researcher, Caroline Brett, also argues that there is no categorical
difference between spiritual awakening and psychosis, and that any apparent
difference results from how the experience is contextualised and labelled -
that is, whether it is supported or pathologised by the person’s peers or wider
culture.

However,
most researchers - including me - take the view that there is a basic
difference between psychosis and awakening. They aren’t just two variations of
the same fundamental experience, but two fundamentally different experiences
which have some similarities, or overlap to some degree. The transpersonal
psychologist Stan Grof, for example, acknowledges that what he calls a
‘spiritual emergency’ can resemble psychosis in that there may be a sudden
eruption of new spiritual energies and potentials which may feel threatening -
even overwhelming - and cause disruption to normal psychological functioning.

However,
Grof believes that a spiritual emergency is fundamentally different in that it
usually features an ‘observing self’ who stands apart from the psychological
disturbance, so that the person can rationalise and understand their experience
to some degree. In psychosis, however, there is no observer; the self is
completely immersed in the experience and so cannot control or integrate it. A
person who is having a spiritual emergency has a sense of grounded detachment
which is absent from psychotic episodes.

Another
leading researcher into spiritual emergencies, David Lukoff, identifies a
number of essential differences between psychotic disorders and what he calls
‘visionary spiritual episodes.’ His research shows that people who have
visionary spiritual experiences have ‘good pre-episode functioning’ - that is,
unlike people who have psychotic disorders, they tend to be well-adjusted and
integrated personalities who were free from psychological problems before. The
onset of their symptoms also occurs more quickly - usually during a period of
three months or less - and they usually have a ‘positive, exploratory attitude
towards the experience.’ In addition, people who have VSEs are more likely to
have a sense of ecstasy and revelation, and have a much reduced risk of
homicidal or suicidal behaviour.

However,
perhaps the difference between psychosis and spirituality is more simple and
fundamental than these researchers suggest. The similarity between them lies in
the fact that they both involve a disruption of a the normal ‘self-system’, and
its normal functioning. When the normal self-system is disturbed by spiritual awakening,
its functions become disrupted too, in the same way that an earthquake disrupts
the basic infrastructure and amenities of a city. But this isn’t strictly a
breakdown, because a new self-system emerges - however problematically - to
replace the old one. There is usually only a temporary disruption to
psychological functioning, since the new self-system soon takes over (again,
even if this ‘takeover’ is a difficult process), and the awakened person soon
re-learns to conceptualise, to concentrate, to communicate, and so on. What
might have appeared to be a breakdown is now revealed to be a shift-up, the
birth of a latent higher-functioning self-system.

But in
psychosis, no latent self-structure emerges. There is simply a breakdown,
without a shift-up. The normal self-system dissolves into a vacuum. There is
nothing to take over the psychological functions which have been disrupted. We
could make an analogy with politics. In psychosis, it’s as if a government dissolves itself,
without arranging for anyone else to take over. As a result, the country
descends into chaos. Its infrastructure begins to fall apart, and basic
amenities and systems no longer function. Whereas in awakening, of course, a
new government takes over power.

This isn’t
to say that there are no similarities between psychosis and spirituality,
besides the initial psychological disturbances that sudden awakening can cause.
The main point of similarity between psychosis and awakening is that they are
both states in which we ‘step outside’ the normal self-system. They are both
states in which a person does not experience reality through the psychological
structures and functions of this self-system. As a result, there are a few
characteristics which are shared by both states - the main one being the
intensified perception or heightened awareness which is often associated with schizophrenia. But even
here there is a difference in that, for a person with schizophrenia, heightened
awareness may not necessarily be a positive phenomenon. It’s likely that they
will lack the ability to control it, so that it constantly intrudes on their
attention. It’s also very possible that, because of the general sense of anxiety they feel, they will
interpret this heightened reality as threatening. Another similarity is the
heightened energy and creativity which is sometimes
associated with schizophrenia, as it is with wakefulness. But again, there is
also a difference here in that a person in psychosis usually isn’t able to
control their energy, and may feel overwhelmed by it.

Finally, an
altered sense of time is also usually shared by both the psychotic and the
wakeful state. In wakefulness, this appears as a sense of transcending the past
and future, and becoming intensely present, or as an expansive sense of time,
in which we feel that we have more than enough time, or time may not even seem
to exist. But in psychosis, this often appears as a sense of being ‘lost’ in
time, being unable to estimate it or control it. It seems therefore that some
of the same basic characteristics appear in both states, but in a
different guise - in a positive manifestation in wakefulness, and in a negative
manifestation in psychosis. (I don’t want to stretch these similarities too far
though. Most of the major characteristics of the wakeful state - such as
heightened well-being, empathy, mental quietness, a reduced need for group
identity - do not occur in psychosis at all.)

This also
doesn't mean that psychosis and spiritual awakening may not sometimes overlap
and merge. In some situations, the relationship between them may be more
complex than I suggest here. For example, it may be that there is a period of
breakdown or psychosis before a new self-system begins to establish itself. Or
perhaps there may be occasions when an emerging self-system is overwhelmed by
psychotic disturbances, and so temporarily dissolves away before returning and
establishing itself properly later.

Overall
though, I believe it’s imperative that more and more psychiatrists become aware
of awakening as a phenomenon in itself, rather than treating it as a form of
psychosis. There are actually some signs that this is happening - here in the
UK, for example, there is now a ‘Spirituality and Psychiatry Special Interest
Group’ within the Royal College of Psychiatry. So hopefully it won’t be too
long before misunderstanding and misinterpretation fades away, and wakefulness
begins to be accepted as a natural and healthy state - one which is
actually much healthier and higher-functioning than our normal state, and which
represents the future direction of the evolution of consciousness, and a movement
towards a positive, more harmonious future.

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2 comments:

Evolution by natural selection, Darwin wrote, mainly depends on “success in leaving progeny.”1 He also recognized that such success may be achieved by “dependence of one being on another.” When are individuals most successful living on their own, and when can they benefit from working with others?It’s not always an easy question to answer. For parasites living in or on other organisms

Modern game theory provides an answer in the efficiency of each individual working in their own true best interest - which entails consideration of surrounding situations (includong other beings) and actually enhances the conditions of a group.

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